The Limit of Compassion
by Infrared Kappa
Summary: Lotr/Silmarillion: When starlight is returned to those elves who were tortured by Mogroth, the creatures from which orcs were bred, the world is forced to reconsider the nature and face of evil.


_**Disclaimer:**_ Anything you haven't heard of is probably from the Silmarillion but large chunks of this are the offspring of my own bric-a-brac imagination so please don't nick any of my characters/ideas without permission. Oh and Tolkien rulz. lol. 

_**Timeline:**_ While many of the ideas and characters originate from the Silmarillion the timing is just post-lotr.

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The cell was dank, and a quiet grave now that the orcs had left. The echoes of their battle cries and sword rhythms hung on the diseased air and, though he slept for the first time in as many days, it was a fitful one. The silence of a sleep without dreams left his body restless, shaking against the waves of forge scorched air and the deep cold of the stone. 

Clutched between the youth's long fingers the stump of marred flesh spasmed as his companion shared in the same fitful rest. In the splintered light which broke through the cracks of the iron door the skin was a map of raised white scars, healed through the impatient application of seared metal to quell the bleeding and unconsciously the elf's slender fingers brushed lightly over it. The prickling of pain woke the prisoner in the other cell, who withdrew his shattered limb from the fissure they had broken through to reach each other in their long imprisonment which had buried the sunlit measures of time in its unnatural darkness. Chained to the wall he could only touch the other with his ruined arm, and so he had never been able to feel the warmth of his companion as the sensitivity of the skin had been seared away. But it was of little matter, unlike the youngling he was used to the blackness and the silence. It had become part of him ages past and he would not take what little heat the boy could dream for himself.

"Teacher?" The voice passed, soft and hesitant through the wall.

"Sleep, there is little rest to be taken in this place." He himself could not sleep, the silence allowed lucid thought to press too closely against the strong bonds of insanity which he kept chained about him and his eyes were wide and watchful.

The boy's fingers gleamed, even smeared with filth and dried blood, as they snaked through the gap, "Will you speak? I - the quiet … it is a deserted quiet. I think they will not return?"

"The dark will always return to Barad-dûr,it is its rightful stronghold, and Mordor aland of its own making. Do not fool yourself; this land was steeped in malice before you were even thought of boy." He leant his head back and drew his legs a little higher to avoid the onset of muscle aches. He looked away from the white hand. 

"You speak too broadly." The reprimand was light but edged with the tight ring of fear. "And Iam too young to think of things like history and greater darkness then that of my cell. I meant the orcs. The air from the fire-pits is cooler than it was before I fell asleep and the stone is still. No footsteps, no machinery or troll groans, even this far down where the pressure should crush it to our lips and bodies the air feels ... emptier."

The elder prisoner did not respond, running the words through his mind as he tested the air with his tongue and the stone with his twisted feet. There was a peace to the place, admittedly, not comforting but lonely as the boy had said. He could understand the boy's fear: orcs were vile company, the black kings and easterling men even more so for both were more inventive but in silence lay the fading death of abandonment, something which would be fearful to one so unspoilt by life's bitter humour. 

"_If_ they are truly gone …" He conceded, "Then we will waste here in each other's company. There is no time down here if they are not here to feed or harm us - do not think too hard on future hunger and thirst."

The response came slowly, and through a shuddering breath which tried at laughter, "Our conversation will be uninterrupted at least." 

"And your education." Chapped lips scraped together as he tried to warm them - they hardened against speech when he and the boy spoke too long, "Now tell me the history of Thentír and the dwarves."

The boy's voice ran over him like water and he set his limb against the questing hands of the boy who touched them gently to the scarred wrist, "In the 12th Year of the Sun, upon the Celebdil…"

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A/N: Kill me now, I thought up another story. You know life isn't fair I've discovered, and literature is even worse. I'm an ideas girl through and through, but with no actual talent for writing or the drive to finish anything ... I need a mental scribe.

Review if you want the next chapter. That might give an inkling as to what's actually going on. 


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